


Where Angels Fear to Tread

by Powderpuff



Category: Girl Genius (Webcomic)
Genre: Agatha Saves The Day, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, But First She Saves Herself, Earn your Happily Ever After, Mind Control, Rape/Non-con Elements, She Has Help, What else can you call Tweedles Nonesense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-06-05 01:56:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15159884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Powderpuff/pseuds/Powderpuff
Summary: Agatha needs to get Lucrezia out of her mind, Martellus out of her cells,  Mechanicsburg out of the time bubble, and save the world from an unknowable extradimensional force, all within two years.No Pressure or anything.Luckily, she doesn't have to do it all alone.





	Where Angels Fear to Tread

Agatha removes the Other out of her head with a Dyne Water solution, a complex electrical setup, and her own terrifying will.

The energy buildup that would normally cause her to explode is thrown against the presence in her mind - identifies every tendril of that parasitic intelligence and systemically; coldly; follows the neural network so entwined in her own and carefully, carefully, breaks the connections; degrades the myelin; she can _see_ how the blue of the Dyne traces the network of Lucrezia, destroys it, turns it to ash.

(Use of the Dyne water has always been a knife’s edge- and Lucrezia is so entwined into her brain that the separations are not always clear. It is hard to control. There is damage.)

But she will not trade the capricious danger of the Dyne for the painful safety of the locket (no one would own her, no one would control her, _she would not allow herself to be treated as a feral dog)_

It _burns._

She screams in pain, she screams in _triumph,_ because she is the Heterodyne and is no one’s pet to be brought to heel, no one’s property; the only right of claim is the claim of Mechanicsburg and those she loves. The pain of freedom is a pain she will suffer.

Agatha will shriek defiance for as long as she holds breath.

****************************************************************      

Before anything, Agatha wants to fix herself. Mechanicsburg deserves better than a puppet ruler- _she_ deserves better than to be a puppet. (Uncle Barry, Lucrezia, the Baron-the whole pack of Valois descendants-they had wanted her controlled, or replaced. It was unfortunate for them, wasn’t it?)

Hierarchy of needs. Remove Lucrezia; remove Martellus; remove the Baron from Gil; free her town and her people, and _make sure no one dared threaten them again_.

Mind, body, heart. In order.

Higgs brings her Dyne water. She carefully does not ask how.

****************************************************************

Correcting Martellus’ meddling is arguably less dangerous, but more tricky. She’s fond of the wasp eater, so killing it is not an option, and biology is not her strength.

Tarvek helps, when he isn’t watching the Sparks- or rather, Doctor Rakethorn. He is particularly nervous about Lord Bunstable, but won’t tell Agatha why.

But Agatha has other help, too. The Circus is in England, after all, and some of them dabbled in biology; in chemistry; and all were eager to help. It is bittersweet, in its way, and part of Agatha Heterodyne, Lady of Mechanicsburg, wishes she was still Agatha Clay, actress.

(There’s a corner of her heart that still beats for Lars: what they were, what they could have been.)

When Tweedle is removed from her cells, she tells Master Payne and the Countess that the circus will always have a place in Mechanicsburg, when it is freed.

(When, not if. Agatha will die before giving up, and if she has to save the world too, then so be it.)

 

Agatha saves her own mind. This is important.

Her friends help her save her body. This is also important.

 

(Krosp leaves Tweedle scars. This is hilarious.)

*********************************************************************

  Saving Mechanicsburg, of course, is much easier said than done. It takes the better part of two years, the work of dozens of specialists, more time travel shenanigans than Agatha is really comfortable with, and two very long, awkward chats with Klaus Wulfenbach, both in and out of Gil’s mind.

There are also several treaties and discussions with some extra-dimensional beings that Agatha understands, but can’t explain _how,_ and she begins to wonder if Albia has lived so long due to a Sparky desire to know.

(Or a driving need to keep what is hers. Agatha isn’t sure which. Maybe it’s both. Maybe it’s neither.)

(She also finds General Zadipok, and people remembered why they feared the Heterodynes, once.)

_How dare you threaten what is mine._

But finally, _finally_ , she stands at the Mechanicsburg gates; surrounded by those she loves and who love her; while the time bubble shimmers-dissipates-disappears.

 

Mechanicsburg is free.

 

The Heterodyne comes home.


End file.
